Synopsis / Summary / Plot
Several flashbacks are shown through this issue showing Punisher 2099's past. Ultron's Deathloks invaded his community while he was away and Jake Gallows rushed back to see it destroyed and his wife and son dead. But they were turned into DLs
like all the others and his family came back to attack him. He was
forced to kill them to put them out of their misery. After that he
dedicated his life to destroying Deathloks. But now he's teamed with a
more advanced Deathlok (an ex-Miles Morales), part of a time-travelling army of them who protect the multiverse.
This Deathlok had inadvertently brought the Savage Avengers
to 2099, but last issue they were all killed and their bodies turned
into DLs themselves. Now Jake and Miles plan to avenge their deaths by
making sure Ultron doesn't get to use Doctor Doom 2099's time gauntlet to conquer other time periods. Currently they're wading through a sewer to get into Alchemax Tower where Ultron has his base.
Then the SA-Loks
attack them, their bodies and powers reflecting their previous lives.
Ultron is watching remotely as he finishes calibrating the time
gauntlet, and he urges his troops to kill the duo. Elektra/Daredevil tries to stab Deathlok with her sais. Black Knight
tells her to hold him still while he slices him open with his energy
blade to see his futuristic tech. But Punisher shoots them both off. Anti-Venom attacks next as the symbiote fires his teeth (!?) at them. Weapon H follows up with a gamma beam from his eyes. Fused together Cloak & Dagger are last as tendrils of his dark cloak ensnare them and she prepares to throw her light-knives.
But our heroes are saved by Dr Doom who they thought dead (last issue). He then holds the 'Loks
off while our 2 heroes race towards the time gauntlet. He throws Weapon
H at Elektra and blasts Anti-Venom, then smashes Cloak&Dagger. But BK
triggers a device which causes Doom's armour to electrocute him,
resulting in a grand mal seizure. All the others recover and they all
prepare to kill Doom, but he fights back.
But Miles knows that
all the DLs are linked to Ultron's network and he enters that cyberspace
to find remnants of their minds. He sees Elektra mourning over
Daredevil (Matt Murdoch), Cloak trapped in his own cloak, Flash Thompson and Tandy Bowen together in the 1950s, Weapon H moping over the family he 'abandoned' and Dane Whitman as a scientist trying to calculate a way out.
Meanwhile
Gallows is trying to protect Miles' body. He activates a blast door to
keep a lot of Deathloks out and starts wiping out those on this side of
it. But they break through so he puts Miles into a lift and dives
amongst the DLs with tritonium grenades primed. There's a very big
explosion. Elsewhere the SA-Loks are trying to tear Doom apart.
In
cyberspace Miles Morales/Deathlok tries to rouse the Savage Avengers to
action. He tells Elektra that she fears that her new less-extreme
approach to heroing as Daredevil will allow evil to flourish but it is
that mercy that has made her the Woman Without Fear. He tells Clay Cortez that being Weapon H isn't the only way to protect his family, they need their father too. Flash Thompson died during the Go Down Swinging/Red Goblin event, but he was resurrected at the end of the King In Black event. Now he latched on to Tandy Bowen to validate his new existence. Tandy was stifled by her partnership with Tyrone Johnson
but now she's trapped here. Cloak worries that without Dagger he'll be
forgotten, but now he and Tandy reach out to each other again. Dane
fears the unavoidable temptation of his Ebony Blade, but Miles (from the future) assures him that his daughter Jacks (see the BK: Curse Of The Ebony Blade
miniseries) at least doesn't succumb and she becomes the greatest Black
Knight ever. Now he gathers all these souls and urges them to fight
together. But then he gets disconnected from the system ...
...
as Ultron finds him in the real world and starts beating on him and then
shows him the time gauntlet coming to life. The SA-Loks continue
beating up Dr Doom until Black Knight is poised for the kill. Meanwhile
in cyberspace they fight for themselves and their team ...
...
and BK lets Doom go and Ultron senses things are going wrong. The Secret
Avengers take over their cyborg bodies and head for the assembly floor
of Alchemax Tower where they dive into vats of Formula-D which
are used to turn people into Deathloks. But now they control the
nanobots and make them turn their cyborg bodies back into flesh and
blood. Ultron says it won't matter because he's going to rewrite
history. Then the renewed Avengers burst forth.